"City of Light" [Epiphany Season Sermon]

Portland Winter Light Festival 2017 (Photo by Stephen Schneider

Epiphany 5, Year A [1]

Lessons:

Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12]
1 Corinthians 2:1-12, [13-15]
Matthew 5:13-20
Psalm 112:1-9

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. . .. . Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”— Matthew 5: 14, 16

Sunday Rituals

Since I was a child, I’ve had a love affair with cities . . . and with city lights.

Growing up in Southern California at mid-century, this love of cities was first awakened by a family ritual.

Each Sunday morning without fail we would leave our home in the foothills above Pasadena and drive the meandering Arroyo Seco Parkway, passing over the Los Angeles River and crossing the hills of Elysian Park, until we made a sudden descent into downtown Los Angeles. Even today, this dramatic entrance into the heart of a sprawling city gives me a rush.

And what first caught my young eye was the City Hall, then the only building allowed to exceed the city’s height restriction.

It stood there, tall, serene.

This was my first introduction to a city.

And at the same time I was being introduced to a city, I was being introduced to the life of faith.

For the destination of this Sunday morning drive was the corner of 12th and Hope Streets on the far edge of downtown. There—at the time—a simple wooden church stood, it’s steeple pointing to the heavens.

Inside that sanctuary each Sunday a small community of people gathered from throughout the Los Angeles basin, people largely of German ancestry.

The tenor section of the choir alone was filled with names almost exactly like my own—Schomper, Schweizter, Schauer and then my father, Schneider.

Next door—in what was once the church parsonage—we met for Sunday School where nearly every week we would sing, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine” or “I want to walk as a child of the light.”

And yet, even though we sang about light—there on that corner of 12th and Hope the light that captured my heart came as the result of another Sunday ritual.

For most Sundays after church we made our way to the home of my grandparents in the Palisades above the Pacific Ocean where we would enjoy a Sunday dinner followed by a relaxing afternoon.

When it finally came time to make the long drive back to Pasadena, it was often dark. And the route that we travelled took us down some of the great boulevards of Los Angeles—Wilshire, Sunset, and Los Feliz.

At night these streets were transformed into vast corridors of light, created by hundreds of flickering neon signs. And in the course of our journey we would also pass by immense fountains lit with the colors of the rainbow.

As an only child sitting in the backseat of an old Ford—with no siblings to distract me—I remember being dazzled, transfixed, as I watched these lights of the city.

In my child mind, I started to connect a few dots: between that little church in the heart of a growing city singing about being a child of the light and those great neon corridors and colorful fountains that on Sunday night helped us to chart our way home.

And so, as the years have passed, I have come to passionately believe that light can still help us to find our way home.

A Gospel for Light People

 And we couldn’t have a better gospel passage to help us to explore the light. 

For our gospel reading for today is part of Matthew’s first collection of some of the teachings of Jesus.

This entire discourse has come to be known as the Sermon on the Mount.

Our lesson immediately follows the introduction to the sermon—a passage that was last week’s Gospel—which centers on what are usually referred to as “the Beatitudes” or “the Blesseds”: blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who mourn.

Today’s Gospel is itself a gateway for all that is to follow in Jesus’ sermon.

In it we discover two images for the life of discipleship—salt and light.

Dale Brunner, in an engaging commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, has called these passages the “You Ares.” [1]

“You are the salt of the earth.” “You are the light of the world.”

Although the image of salt seems strangely relevant for these days of snow and ice, this morning—since we are in the season of Epiphany—I want to call your attention to the second of these images, the image of light.

“You are the light of the world.”

And we need to know that the “you” in this sentence is plural in the Greek text.

This means that Jesus is talking about all of us in the community of faith, all of us together.

Listen to Dale Bruner’s translation of the text as Jesus addresses his followers:

You folks are the very light of the world!” [2]

  This alone should jolt us awake on a wintry morning.

For this passage is about us—all of us together—gathered here as a household of faith.

Few though we may be, we are part of that great alternative community of the Light People—children of light.

We are, without question, living in an anxious and uncertain time.

Many of the most vulnerable among us are living in fear for their future.

And all of us can sense the deep divisions that are tearing at our national fabric.

How are we to respond to these times in which we live?

There are, of course, many ways to become engaged.

And important as these can be, the Gospel calls us to an even deeper place—to claim an ultimate identity:

“You folks are the very light of the world.”

And the Greek word here for “world” is our word, “cosmos.”

St. Chrysostum, one of the leaders of the church in the fourth century said: “You are the light of the world—not of a single nation nor of twenty cities but of the entire inhabited earth.” [3]

Throughout this season we have been thinking a lot about light: that light of God that has come into the world and into our lives, beginning with the star that brought the magi to the Bethlehem manger

Today in the gospel we are brought to this naked truth: that we are light.

And in the end nothing should distract us—no Facebook posting or Twitter feed—from claiming this as our true identity

City on a Hill

And along with a luminous identity, we are also given a further picture in the Gospel, the image of “a city on a hill.”

New Testament scholar Barbara Reid has suggested that in this image of a city on a mountain or hill that cannot be hidden we have a metaphor with an unusual “political twist.”

Since Cicero had described the politically dominant city in Jesus time—the imperial city of Rome—as a “light to the whole world,” Jesus is here offering to his followers a counter image [4]:

“You folks are the very light of the world.”

The way of Jesus then becomes an alternative light to the Roman system of power exercised through oppression and control.

I like to think that as communities of faith we are called to be part of another city, a city of light.

And to be “on a hill” means we are meant to be seen—not to be an invisible city.

In recent days we’ve heard a bit about “alternative facts,” but here we have an authentic truth—the “alternative reality” of the Christian Gospel.

For even though we are to be engaged in the life of the cities in which we live, we are fundamentally to be residents of another city—this city on a hill, meant to give light to the world.

And we are not ourselves the source of the light, but we refract through our common life “the light of the one who is the Light of the world.”

We are God’s compassionate presence—God’s light—in our world.

We together are to be the light of the world in this city, here in this neighborhood.

We are Light People, shining together as “a city of light.”

That’s who we are.

Light People are intended to make a difference in the world.

Light People are people of compassion.

Light People stand with all those who are vulnerable during these days—with immigrants and refugees, with Muslims and Native Americans, with those whose gender or sexual orientation may differ from our own.

You are the light of the cosmos—so no one is excluded.

Neon Light

As part of my current work, I have taken a renewed interest in the neon lights of Los Angeles.

I have read about the rise and fall and—and more recently—the rise again of an interest in neon in the city.

I have walked at night along Broadway—the main street of downtown Los Angeles. Broadway is where many of the great movie palaces are to be found. Shuttered for decades, they are now being restored and neon lights are blazing once again across their facades.

Not along ago I met the authors of Spectacular Illumination, a recent book of photographs on Neon Los Angeles, 1925-1965. [5]

This book on the neon of Los Angeles includes those years our family drove down the neon corridors on our way home.

One of the authors, a photographer, signed my copy of the book, and then added this inscription:

“Stay in focus!”

That’s exactly what we need to do during these days—to “stay in focus” as people of the Light.

To avoid the distractions.

To “stay in focus” in order to give witness—through our words and our deeds, through our compassion and our courage—to the light of God, that light that is greater than any darkness that may surround us.

A Festival of Light

A few nights ago I was returning to Portland from the Westside, looking forward to the night view of the city you receive as you cross over the Marquam Bridge.

But on this particular evening, I wasn’t quite prepared for what I saw:

For surrounding the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, even crossing the river, there was a dazzling display of light.

Though the hour was late, I made a hasty exist from the freeway, parked my car and walked toward the light.

What I discovered was Portland’s Second Annual Winter Light Festival, a new tradition where Portland artists, working with a variety of light sources, had created little corridors and oases of light.

There were dozens of light displays including a multi-colored geodesic dome, trees with dancing lights, a field of luminous rabbits, and the Tilikum Crossing bridge covered in light.

It was a wonderful parable of what we are called to be as communities of faith:

Each of us crafting our own unique expression and together becoming for the world around us a witness to the light

“You folk,” Jesus said, “you folk, are the light of the world.”

So, “Stay in focus!”

Become builders of the City of Light.

In the midst of the darkest places of our world, we are called to be corridors of justice and mercy, fountains of grace and hope . . .

Light, you see, can still help us to find our way home.

Jesus said: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

__________________

Endnotes:

[1] Sermon given on February 5, 2017  at St. Aidan Episcopal Church in Gresham, Oregon.

[2] Frederick Dale Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary, Volume 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12, Revised and Expanded Edition. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987), p. 187.

[3] Bruner, Ibid, p. 190-191.

[4] Manlio Simonetti (editor). Matthew 1-13 – Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament, Ia. I (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2001. p. 93.

[5] Barbara E. Reid, The Gospel According to Matthew (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2005. The Cicero citation is from Cataline 4.6.

[6] Tom Zimmerman with J. Eric Lynxwiler. Spectacular Illumination, Neon Los Angeles 1925-1965. (Santa Monica, California: Angel City Press, 2016).